Author Archives: David Brussat

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About David Brussat

This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred. History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book. My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally. I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002. I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato. If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457. Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I would have written." - Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.

Saving historic pavement

One of many fascinating narratives in Seven Ages of Paris was author Alistair Horne’s frequent return to the subject of how Paris’s streets evolved from muddy lanes awash in human waste to paved streets with gutters down the middle to … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Christopher Gray, RIP

Just got a sad email from Irving Sheldon, my friend and former colleague at the Providence Journal, that Christopher Gray has just died. From 1987 to 2014, he wrote the weekly “Streetscapes” column in the real-estate section on Sundays for … Continue reading

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Eulogies for Fogarty on tap

Whether you are glad or sad to see it go, the Fogarty Building finally seems about to ruthlessly collide its chunky members, such as they are, for the last time. Demolition of the empty, forlorn 1967 building in the Brutalist … Continue reading

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Plan to goof up Prov library

The 1954 Moderne addition to the Providence Public Library’s original Beaux-Arts building, completed in 1900, already has much to atone for. Not the building itself – its architects and, more, the PPL board that canceled a classical addition (below) in … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Preservation, Providence | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Oops! Wrong shot of hotel

Thursday’s Providence Journal story, “Icon? Eyesore? Demolition to begin of Fogar- ty Building in downtown,” about the demise of the Fogarty Building and its replacement by a new hotel had the wrong picture of the hotel design. It shows the … Continue reading

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Swallow up R.I., circa 1862

The British writer Anthony Trollope, born in 1815, wrote over forty novels plus various nonfictional accounts, including a two-volume North America, published in 1862 and based on a nine months’ sojourn here. In 1823, his mother, Frances Trollope, wrote a … Continue reading

Posted in Books and Culture, Rhode Island | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

TB: Ode to a Tuscan column

Here is February’s post for my blog at Traditional Building, titled “Ode to a Tuscan column.” It chews on some erudite – some might say persnickety – conversation about how to transform the entablature of a Tuscan column into the … Continue reading

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Arthur Ross Awards, 2017

Back in 2013 I visited Chicago to attend the celebration of that year’s Driehaus Prize laureate, Thomas Beeby. Amid the festivities was a large landscape in oil that included work by all of the first ten Driehaus recipients, commissioned by … Continue reading

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A lovely 3 minutes in Rome

Here is a video of Rome, with some clips from Pisa and Vatican City, sent to me by Big Geek Daddy. Actually, they sent a video of Barcelona, but it was marred by too much focus on special effects, though … Continue reading

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Good ideas for 6/10, I-195

Perhaps this comes too late to affect either the Route 195 corridor project (now renamed the Innovation & Design District) or the plan to rebuild the Route 6/10 connector. The former has been advanced (if you can call it that) … Continue reading

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